Hello my name is Seth and my grandparents recently decided to give me one of their cars since my old Ranger finally broke down on me, I have a 2000 ZX3 Kona Edition, it definitely needs some upgrades and I am just not sure where to start. Help with exhaust, sound systems, under the hood upgrades to increase speed and MPG is greatly appreciated. I really want to keep this car up and running and look good while doing it. Thank you for all replys :)

As far as performance upgrades go you are in the right section. But the sound system upgrade is a different section, so be sure you post anything you need in the Car Audio, SYNC and Electronics section.

Exhaust is a good route to start on. But what we really need to start with is your budget and what results you are looking for. Let us know what you have to spend and what you would like and most of us can help point you in the right direction.

Okay I will head to that section for the audio sorry about that :p as far as my budget goes to start out with i would say around 2 to 4k. Basically I am looking to turn my little stock focus into a nice looking/quick focus. I will post pictures soon but to give you an idea everything on the car is starting to show age and I want to simply upgrade the cosmetics as well as the engine. I would like to start with exhaust and then work into getting more horsepower, then window tint as well as light foggers.

well i cant help you on the sound system and appearance aspect since my can looks like frankenstein's monster and doesnt really have any sound except for exhaust lol. but power i can help you with.

the only way you are going to get a power upgrade with this car is to go with some kind of forced induction. supercharger, nitrous, or turbo. otherwise if you want to try to build the car for more power and stay naturally aspired you will be spending twice the money for a quarter to half the power.

as far as bolt ons go the best route is the SVT header conversion which requires a SVT header, SVT cat or off-road pipe, SVT flex pipe, SVT dipstick tube, and either alot of header wrap or a relocated power steering line. sounds like a lot but it isnt that bad to change all that out.

dont bother with the exhaust unless you go up to at least 2.5 inch diameter piping from the flex pipe back. if you get the SVT header you want the exhaust to flow as freely as possible. the car would make the most power running open header with the SVT header if you could get away with it for emissions and noise. so the less restrictive you can make the exhaust the better off you are.

put a K&N panel filter in the stock air box or locate a SVT airbox and snorkel and get a K&N for it. the SVT is only slightly better than stock but is still better than 90% of the aftermarket intakes that get heatsoak so bad that the factory intake outperforms them.

nitrous is the absolute biggest bang for your buck power adder that you can get for the focus. i happen to be selling a kit in the buy/sell/trade section of this site if you're interested. a little copy and paste snippit from it: you get more power per dollar spent with a nitrous kit like this than with any other mod you can think of.

buy this kit and run a 100 shot (which the stock motor can handle fine with a good tune) which will make roughly 100hp more. that is $6 per hp.
a SVT header conversion costs about $500 and makes about a 20hp gain which is about $25 per hp.
your average new complete turbo kit costs around $3000 and can push hp up by as much as 140 on a stock engine. that costs about $22 per hp.

dont get me started on those underdrive pulleys that cost $100 and maybe make a 1/2 hp gain.

need i go on?

there are turbocharger and supercharger kits for sale as well on this site for under $2000. if you do any of that you will absolutely NEED a tune. Tom is our resident go to guy for tuning on the focus. his screen name on here is 1turbofocus and he is damn good at what he does.

okay thank you very much I am extremely new to the aftermarket car stuff so i had to do some research on all of the things you said but after looking at it i do like what you said. So if i get the SVT header should i worry about upgrading the actual exhaust to say a magnaflow? or not worry since the svt will change the sound anyways? Also what exactly does the K&N filter do as far as power goes? I appreciate the feedback :)

if you go with a SVT header you should upgrade the exhaust. use your own judgement on what brand to go with or even look into getting a local muffler shop to fabricate a custom flexpipe back exhaust for you. typically it costs over $300 for a bolt on exhaust. i had a local shop do mine for $100 not including the cost of mufflers. i personally like the dynomax 3 chamber mufflers that autozone or advanced sells.

the K&N filter just flows air better than a typical paper filter. you wont get a huge power gain from it but its something. there just isnt really much power to be gained at all from intake upgrades with the focus.

Well also I'm saying this because it made a noticeable diffance in my ZX3 01 I just put in just a Spectra filter the really long cone one and I'm able to keep up with my friend in his grand prix I believe it's a newer 2000 2004 or 05 around there but since my car has more power then torque I have the advantage at a rolling start and once I took off I passed him... But he caught up lol but never the less its a big improvement I also have a high flow megaflow catalytic converter any ways my point is that play around with intake system and air filters too try something don't like it clean itit up and return it and try something else lol

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